cases like the haf-x seem to get old to me quickly. the led's and flashy design just seem...childish. dunno...not trying to offend anyone.

i always prefer a much more simple, classy, elegant design, such as the switch 810 (also comes in white), or the 800D by Corsair (out of budget), or the fractal design xl (also comes in grey/titanium), or any of lian-li's produts (out of budget)...

i've never heard a complaint about the xl's airflow, plus it has foam silencing pre-installing, and the 810 has yet to get a negative review.

while popular, i really think you'll grow tired of the look provided by the haf-x and other flashy cases.

on that note, why full tower? a mid-tower would cover your needs just fine, be less expensive, and have a smaller footprint, making it easier to transport and place in a room. full-tower is only necessary if you are doing E-ATX or XL-ATX. I made the mistake of getting a full-tower when i didn't need it and regretted it pretty quickly.

cases like the haf-x seem to get old to me quickly. the led's and flashy design just seem...childish. dunno...not trying to offend anyone.
i always prefer a much more simple, classy, elegant design, such as the switch 810 (also comes in white), or the 800D by Corsair (out of budget), or the fractal design xl (also comes in grey/titanium), or any of lian-li's produts (out of budget)...
i've never heard a complaint about the xl's airflow, plus it has foam silencing pre-installing, and the 810 has yet to get a negative review.
while popular, i really think you'll grow tired of the look provided by the haf-x and other flashy cases.
on that note, why full tower? a mid-tower would cover your needs just fine, be less expensive, and have a smaller footprint, making it easier to transport and place in a room. full-tower is only necessary if you are doing E-ATX or XL-ATX. I made the mistake of getting a full-tower when i didn't need it and regretted it pretty quickly.

-Although a nice case design would be nice, performance is more important to me.
-I'm willing to spend that extra money if the case is absolutely worth it.
-I want a full tower because I plan to run SLI and have more than 1 HDD.

Well the HAF X is a very solid case. I have one and I'm not trying to be bias towards it but the build quality is superb. The phantom is nice as well but there are more plastic parts where most of the haf x is made of steel. There is a lot of room to work with, a lot of HDD/SSD drive bays, room for custom water cooling if you go down that path in the future. dual rad CLC's like the h100 are compatible. It's just a great case all around.

What's the best full tower gaming case for around $200? I'm willing to spend more if the case is really worth it. I'm looking for:
-Good airflow, I plan to game a lot with this computer.
-Lots of space, I plan to run SLI and have 2-3 SSDs/HDDs.

You say full tower, but is that mandatory? As a previous poster said the 650D is a good case, as well as the 600T which I just purchased. They are LARGE mid tower cases.

If you're after excellent airflow, then probably the ft02 (Not full tower, but adequate space for your requirements). Switch 810 looks decent as well, 800D isn't that great for air cooling, especially multiple GPU's.

-Although a nice case design would be nice, performance is more important to me.
-I'm willing to spend that extra money if the case is absolutely worth it.
-I want a full tower because I plan to run SLI and have more than 1 HDD.

the innards of the cases will not vary by a terrible amount. higher end cases all have mostly happy users, so "performance" will not vary terribly.

extra money would be like 280+20 shipping for an 800D, but if you can swing it, that is my ultimate recommendation.

SLI is most definitely possible on a mid tower case....in fact, most mid-tower cases have 7 expansion slots, more than enough to cover the ATX motherboards they are designed to accommodate. as for HDD's, even much smaller cases have room for more than one. I am using a M-ITX case and have literally 4 different hard drives. Granted, 2 of them are 2.5" and sitting in a single 3.5" adapter, but the point is that unless you are trying to run a 10TB NAS out of your gaming PC, you will not run out of drive bays with a mid-tower.

Edit: One more thing: Steel sounds cool, but in the end, aluminum is easier to work with due to weight, and durability is not an issue as long as you dont plan on dropping your case. which, frankly, would likely damage a steel case as well.Edited by macsters - 4/2/12 at 1:17am